Prototypes

Prototypes

Virtual Child Witness

The primary objective of this research project is to establish the feasibility and efficacy of using an interactive learning environment to train and evaluate investigative child interviewing skills. In the courts, children are portrayed by defense attorneys and expert witnesses as being highly suggestible. As a result, child witnesses are often not believed. On the other hand, suggestive interviewing methods have been shown to undermine young children’s accuracy, and can lead to false convictions.

The Virtual Child Witness project models the rapport building phase of an investigative interview, in which the interviewer asks the child questions about innocuous events. Users select from a menu of questions that vary in their open-endedness and therefore in their productivity in eliciting narrative reports.

Initially, the project was intended to demonstrate the varying effectiveness of different question types at inducing detailed accounts of information regarding an innocuous event experienced by the virtual child; what is known as the narrative practice rapport phase of an investigative interview. Pilot data has supported the program’s efficacy in assessing the user’s interviewing skills, and in serving as an engaging device for training. Further refinements will lead to a program that can be used, by the multitude of different agencies tasked with investigative interviewing, to train all necessary components of what make up an effective investigative interview, components adapted from the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) investigative interview protocol (Lamb et al., 2008).

The creation of a virtual child can provide a cost-effective and standardized process for teaching good interviewing skills. It can be disseminated through the web, providing a distance learning alternative to in-person training.

Related Prototypes

Work depicted here was sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL). Statements and opinions expressed and content included do not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Government, and no official endorsement should be inferred.